Alphabet Series
by Vashti
Summary: The life of a Ravenclaw isn't all books and research. Okay so a lot of it is books and research papers but there's good old fashion House rivalry, too.
1. Known

**Title:** Known**  
Series: **Alphabet Series**  
Author: **vashti**  
Character(s):** OCs, and anyone you think you recognize...you do**  
Rating:** PG**  
Summary:** Abscond - to depart secretly; to steal away and hide oneself -- used especially of persons who withdraw to avoid arrest or prosecution**  
Length: **1,726 words**  
Disclaimer: **Seriously, if I had JKR's money...I still might write fanfiction. But I don't. I own nothing and I claim nothing.**  
Dedication: **my fellow ducks  
**Notes:** written for the Charles Duckins challenge at Hogwarts Castle, which is based on the AlphaBetaSoup challenge at LiveJournal.

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Known by vashti

It wasn't that Prinamorielaine Silverton hated Slytherin. It was just that…she hated all the connotations they were married to. Okay, and maybe she hated them too. Which was unreasonably illogical and just plain not nice. Didn't stop her though.

Sitting on a low knoll, the castle behind her and the grounds stretching out below, Prin's eyes were drawn to the knot of giggling Slytherin girls sitting under a large tree near the lake. For people she supposedly wouldn't get near with a ten-foot long Whomping Willow branch, she sure did seem to notice Slytherins everywhere. _They're like dustbunnies_, she thought. _Gray and furry and somehow really squicky._ A fine shudder went through Prin as her lips curled in a sneer that would have done one very surly professor proud – assuming he could be so bothered.

"Somehow I doubt it."

Prin cut her eyes to the right. Sitting beside her, mirroring her half-reclined pose on the blanket right down to the curl of her knees and the way her left arm (right arm) was stiff and holding her up, was Prin. Or a spot-on facsimile thereof. Prin wasn't sure when she'd begun seeing visions of herself, or her Self as she thought of it, but she knew it had begun after Hogwarts, sometime after her first year. She had been used to talking to herself as a child and "responding" back. She had never had an imaginary friend and had always supposed that what she did was close enough – and certainly a lot less odd. But before going to school she had never _really_ talked to herself, just held conversations in her head. By the time she'd noticed the change it had seemed like the most natural thing in the world. And much odder than having an imaginary friend. Much.

_You think Snape'd actually take half a second to notice me for something that's not wrong?_ Prin mused, surprised. Usually her Self was full of personal insight, witty quips and a no-holds-barred view on what Prin-the-person was doing, or not doing, with her life.

"Heck no! I think he'd take one look at you, roll his eyes and walk away. Assuming he's in a particularly good mood. If he's in a bad mood I think we'd be picking up the shreds of your pride and self-worth for the rest of the term."

Prin bit her lower lip, resisting the urge to grin.

"Wuh oh. The fuzz at five o'clock."

_The who?_ But Prin turned and looked over her shoulder anyway. Her mouth opened in a little O.

"It could be worse. It could be Snape," she threw in before Prin could ask how.

She had no idea why he was walking toward her. It was possible that he was just walking in her general direction. She was sitting on the outer edge of a small copse of trees on a quiet side of the castle, and it was a nice way to walk to the lake without being blinded by the sun. Certainly a number of her fellow classmates had already passed her on the side closest to the trees doing just that. But he looked far too purposeful.

"You really shouldn't leave your mouth open like that, Miss Silverton. You've no idea what might fly in. Believe me, I know."

"Sir?"

Apparently that was all the invitation he needed to decide to drop down onto her blanket. The prerogatives of power.

Prin had made herself adept at hiding her emotions – way too many visits to her Head of House that first year had seen to that – but couldn't suppress her wide-eyed surprise. "Sir?"

"Yes, Miss Silverton."

"Um, you're sitting with me, sir."

"So it would appear."

And just where did you take a conversation after that?

"You don't much like Slytherin House, do you Miss Silverton?"

Okay, that wasn't where Prin would have gone… "What makes you say that, Professor?"

He scratched his chin in a way that suggested he'd rather be pulling on a long white beard, but he was far too young for that. He was, in fact, the youngest headmaster in Hogwarts history. She knew. It had been debated over Wizard's Chess in the Ravenclaw common room her first week at school.

So what was he doing sitting with her? Merlin's hoary beard!

"Dunno," he began, answering her question. "There was that incident your first year—"

"I'm a fifth year now, Professor! Sorry, Professor," she apologized quickly at his sharp glance her way. He was leaning back on his hands, for all the world like one of her friends.

What did that girl in that story say? Curiouser and curiouser.

"Miss Silverton…Prin…may I call you Prin?"

"Whatever you want, Professor."

"Prin, it's not healthy to wholeheartedly hate an entire house based on the musings of one musty hat."

It was Prin's turn to give him a sharp look. She was under the impression that the "must hat" kept its musings to itself. "I don't wholeheartedly hate anyone," she said calmly, seriously.

His eyebrows went up. "Is that so?"

Prin took a deep breath. Held it. She envisioned a miniature of herself standing in the windows of her eyes, staring out at the man beyond. The miniature stepped back from the window, from him, holding within her Prin's truest self – every secret, every wish, every dark thing. Everything no one wanted to hear or see or believe or deal with. It waited.

Eyebrows climbing, the headmaster looked at her expectantly.

Prin let out the breath. "Yes, sir."

Her miniature, a vision that was the answer to every unanswered question, turned from the view beyond Prin's eyes and took a step and dived into deep still waters. Part of her was swallowed whole by the dark. Part of her was still smiling at the professor.

He snapped and pointed at her: "There!"

Prin jerked backward. "Sir?"

"There, what you just did."

"What…what did I do, sir?" Did he know? How could he know? And, of course, at such a vital time as this her all-knowing, intuitive Self was gone. Very unhelpful. She never seemed to be able to get the revelation without her. How she'd survived all those years without the snarky visual representation of her own inner workings she had no idea…even if she had probably managed to look a lot more sane while doing it. However it was that she'd done it.

"You're here with me Miss Silverton, Prin, but part of you has quite cleverly gone—elsewhere. Am I right?"

She was too dumbfounded to answer.

"It's just as I thought." He pushed himself up with his hands, grunting and groaning as his body all but audibly creaked from holding what only looked like a comfortable position for too long.

_Not as young as we think_, Prin thought numbly, watching him.

He turned around to look down at her and this time it was Prin leaning back on her hands, the better to see him, as the hem of his robes drifted tenderly over her legs curled beneath her. From her position he looked taller, but she knew better.

He pushed his glasses up his nose. "First thing Monday morning, Miss Silverton, Prin, I would like you to report to your Head of House—"

"But, sir!"

"—and the two of you will discuss how to rework your schedule to include Occlumency and Legilimency studies into your current course load."

Prin blinked up at him.

"Will that do, Miss Silverton?"

Prin gaped at him, opening and closing her mouth like a tired guppy. "I… I'm not in trouble, sir?"

"Have you done something requiring—"

"No, sir!"

"Do you find adding two new classes to your load tedious or impossible?"

Personally she thought it was probably dangerous – the potential there was immense – but her greedy mind was already working. The miniature of herself had popped its head above the dark water, dry as a bone as always, and was idly kicking its feet at the shores of Prin's consciousness. Its eyes were bright with mischief. "Think of the things we could do."

"No, sir," she answered. "But aren't Occlumency and Legilimency advanced magic, sir? Much more advanced than fifth year studies?"

"That's a very good point, Miss Silverton. Prin. Please enjoy the rest of your weekend. I hear the weather is supposed to hold until next Wednesday."

The hem of his robe merely brushing her kneecaps when he turned away from her for the last time.

Prin nearly rolled off the blanket at the touch on her knee. She'd been staring at the headmaster's retreating back, all but dissapperated though it was.

"Sorry to frighten you…" It was one of the Slytherin girls from the lake. "Thought you heard me come up."

"Nothing to apologize about. Just still completely stunned by the headmaster talking to me."

The Slytherin girl lit up. Prin guessed that she had given the girl the opening she had been hoping for.

"Yeah…a bunch of us were sitting down by the lake and saw him standing up just now. What was that about?" she asked with some sympathetic incredulity of her own.

Prin thought the girl had to be a fourth or sixth year because the height was right but she couldn't place the face at all. Ah well. Hardly mattered. Plastering a giddy smile on her face, she turned the full force of her Ravenclaw geekiness on the girl. "The most amazing thing!"

The Slytherin's eyes widened.

"He offered me to let me add two classes to my course load!"

"Really? That's just fantastic."

But Prin could tell she wasn't nearly as excited as she had been. She took a deep breath as if to launch into all the geeky details when the Slytherin cut her off: "Well we just wanted to make sure you were all right. I mean you were here by yourself and all."

"Aw, that was nice of you. What's your name?"

"Caitlyn. And you are…?"

"Prin. Everyone calls me Prin. Anyway, thanks Caitlyn. And thank your friends, too. Maybe I'll see you guys around? Tell you how the classes are going?"

"Maybe." But she clearly didn't think so. Neither did Prin.

When she left, Prin let herself fall unceremoniously to her blanket. Her Self curled up quietly next to her. They were there the rest of the afternoon.

inFINite


	2. What Would Happen

**Title:** What Would Happen**  
Series: **Alphabet Series**  
Author: **vashti**  
Character(s):** OCs, and anyone you think you recognize...you do**  
Rating:** PG**  
Summary: ** Bouleversement - complete overthrow, a reversal, a turning upside down **  
Length: **1,770 words**  
Disclaimer: **Seriously, if I had JKR's money...I still might write fanfiction. But I don't. I own nothing and I claim nothing.**  
Dedication: **my fellow ducks  
**Notes:** written for the Charles Duckins challenge at Hogwarts Castle, which is based on the AlphaBetaSoup challenge at LiveJournal

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What Would Happen by vashti

"Lost, Silverton?"

If it had been anyone other than Paul Malficious asking, Prin would have answered with a grin and a quick, "Nope. This class just got added to my class register." But it was Paul Malficious and their dislike for each other was nigh on legendary.

Prin remembered the first time she'd set eyes on Paul Malficious. She'd gone three blissful years at Hogwarts without ever running into him or hearing his name. Then one day she'd been on her way to the library, head buried in a book, when the staircases had decided to move. The ominous rumbling should have been warning enough – there being no reason for them to rumble since they were well oiled – but all of Prin's senses had been otherwise occupied. She'd been right on the precipice of a moving stair when she had finally noticed what was going on around her. Her brain, unfortunately, had been slow about sending the message to her legs to STOP MOVING!

She had lost the book as she tipped forward, but had been too busy flailing for the stationary staircase just out of her reach to care.

Instead of cold hard stone, she'd suddenly felt warm hands in her own. She only had a chance to catch a flash of green eyes under heavy black brows before she was occupied with the business of getting her feet out of the air and on the stone staircase. The two of them had fallen back onto the landing just as another staircase clicked into place. Prin had rolled off her savior's legs and pushed herself up. "Thank you, whoever you are. I probably would have been cut in half if—"

"You would have suffered no such thing." His crisp English accent had cut the air. And her. "Either you would have managed to pull yourself up or another staircase would have come just under to lessen the drop before you could break something." The way he had said "break something" she'd expected him to add "silly American" or "stupid Ravenclaw." She'd noticed his crest by then – Slytherin. Bane of her existence. The striking contrast of his dark hair and deep green eyes scarcely registered after that.

And now he was here, too, in the Occlumency and Legilimency classes the headmaster himself had recommended her for. An advanced magic class. Merlin's crooked beard, why was Malficious here as well? Prin was very much tempted to match her fellow Fifth Year's sneer with one of her own and tell him that she had been recommended by the headmaster. Except, she reasoned, if Malficious was here it was very likely that his place in the class had been recommended as well.

"Are _you_ lost, Malficious?" It was all she could do not to slip into an English accent of her own. Growing up in the States had overpowered having English parents. She sounded like a Yank, but she was sensitive to the accent of her parents. Sometimes she slipped right into it, but usually only when she was playing around, or very tired, or very angry. Malficious had a way of sending her straight into very angry without trying. It was his arrogance, his pretentiousness.

After the day he had saved her on the stair—although why she continued to think of it as "being saved" when he maintained he was actually reaching for the tome that she'd dropped, she didn't know—she seemed to run into him everywhere. As far as she could tell he took that air of privilege, arrogance and general self-importance with him no matter who he was with or what he was doing. She had no idea how the other Slytherins could stand him. He looked down his nose at them as much as he did anyone else. One day he'd allow them to play with him as he mucked about with some poor lower year (even a hapless Slytherin who happened to be on the outs with his group) and the next day they'd be the target of his games.

His smile was scarcely anything more than an extended sneer. "Clearly not. And I believe I asked you first."

"I'm sorry, how old are you again? Five?"

"Was that your attempt at wit, Silverton?"

He was also, unfortunately, brilliant. It was absolutely likely that he'd been recommended for the classes. She should have considered the very possibility when the headmaster had offered them to her. She should have asked her Head of House when they were working to rearrange her schedule. Somehow, though, she always managed to forget about Malficious until she was in his presence. Then it was all but impossible for her _not_ to think of him. They tended to snipe at each other like two old biddies. They'd both gotten detention for it more than once, but after one particularly memorable fight had gotten them sent to the headmaster, whispered though it had been, they had taken to confining their verbal battles to thinly veiled insults couched as responses to questions raised in class. Outside of class… Well things were different outside of class weren't they.

"And is this yours? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you asked me if I was lost. I only repeated the question."

"Exactly my point."

Prin shook her head. Corkscrew curls fell across her eyes. For a second she thought she saw Malficious staring at them way too hard as she pushed hair out of her eyes. Immediately Prin's mind went to the potions that needed hair. There were more than a few and, of the ones she could think of, far too many had negative results for the original owner of the hair for her liking. Prin frowned at the Slytherin boy. "Look, Malficious--" It was all she could do not to call him "Malfy" just to raise his hackles. "—clearly we're both in this class by special dispensation. Let's not threaten that by, well, by being us."

One of Malficious' eyebrows rose. "And what, precisely, do you mean by that?"

"Oh, come on. You know exactly what I mean. We go at it like alley cats—"

"Speak for yourself."

Prin ignored him as she plowed on. "—and end up with at least one detention apiece before the term's up. Except that I bet this time we'll just get pulled from the class."

To her surprise he didn't immediately have a snarky retort for her. In the silence that followed she realized that they weren't alone. There were a pair of Gryffindors over by the far wall sitting in front of a Ravenclaw and two Hufflepuffs. Three Slytherins were in the back, a seat or two from Malficious. All of them were upperclassmen. All of them were staring at her and Malficious. Dang.

The silence was going on too long. The upperclassmen, she realized, hadn't resumed whatever conversation she and Malficious had interrupted.

She really hated being the better person. She'd much rather spend her time cutting him to the intellectual quick, but she didn't want to lose her place. "Look Malficious, which would you rather do, match wits with me or prove yourself in this class full of Seventh Years?"

She could see it in his eyes—he didn't want to say the words out loud. It would hurt his pride, she was sure, to admit that he had something to prove instead of everyone simply acknowledging his worth. But he did have something to prove. So Prin left the doorway and sat down near the other Ravenclaw without another word.

Their professor entered ten minutes later.

Midway through their lesson, which Prin was almost disgusted to find was all theory and no practical, black writing began to form near the bottom of her parchment. Part of her marveled at the skill it took to make such a thing happen. Part of her was annoyed that he would dare do such a thing not knowing how much parchment she did or did not have left to spare for a note. Part of her was jealous.

She took her sweet time getting her stuff together at the end of class. Any of her friends would have instantly wondered what was wrong. Prin was not known for her careful packing. She had been voted Most Likely to Master Scourgify her first year for the haphazard way she threw parchment, inkpots and quills into her bag. But no one in this class knew her. Except Malficious.

It felt like forever but about five minutes after the last person left the room—the professor with an admonishment to "Hurry up, you two, or you'll be late for your next classes. Unless, of course, they're down here in the dungeons."—Malficous approached her. Prin turned when she heard his boots on the stone, the whisper of his robes as he moved up the aisle. She'd been bracing herself for whatever wretched thing he was going to say in payback for making him back down earlier. So what that she had given him an easy out for his pride. If she hadn't said anything it wouldn't have been on the line in the first place. Prin wondered why she'd stuck around in the first place. No good could come out of a private conversation with Paul Malficious. Invariably she was left red as a beet with pent-up frustration or outright fury as he pushed her over a line she wouldn't have otherwise crossed.

"What do you wa—"

Warm hands, hands that had gotten considerably larger since they'd last touched her, cupped her cheeks, drawing her close. Prin fumbled for her wand. Then forgot all about it as Malficious' mouth covered her own.

She was left dazed and blinking when he finally released her. He licked his lips, staring down at his hands as if he didn't know who they belonged to. "I've waited almost two years to do that," he told them. He looked up at her. "Except there was always someone around. Good day to you, Prin Silverton."

She remembered then that one of his wretched brothers-in-mischief had appeared right after his snide remark on the landing that day. And of course they would be surrounded by classmates under normal circumstances. But what did Seventh Years care about a pair of Fifth Years?

Speechless, she watched as he roughly grabbed his bag and stalked out of the room.

She had turned to her own bag when his voice came echoing down the dimly lit stone hall: "You need to work on your wand arm, Silverton. You're a little slow on the draw."

Finite


	3. The Past is a Land Far Behind Us

**Title:** The Past is a Land Far Behind Us**  
Series: **Alphabet Series**  
Author: **vashti**  
Character(s):** OCs, and anyone you think you recognize...you do**  
Rating:** PG**  
Summary: ** Camarilla - A group of secret and often scheming advisers, as of a king; a cabal or clique.;Cozen - To cheat; to defraud; to deceive, usually by petty tricks; to obtain by deceit.  
**Length: **1,857 words**  
Disclaimer: **Seriously, if I had JKR's money...I still might write fanfiction. But I don't. I own nothing and I claim nothing.**  
Dedication: **my fellow ducks  
**Notes:** written for the Charles Duckins challenge at Hogwarts Castle, which is based on the AlphaBetaSoup challenge at LiveJournal

* * *

The Past is a Land Far Behind Us  
by vashti

_"You need to work on your wand arm, Silverton, you're a little slow on the draw,"_ Prin nattered into the mirror.

"Talking to yourself again, Prin?"

Prin straightened quickly, spinning around. "No. Not much."

Her friend and dorm mate, Nina, rolled her eyes. "Oh sure. I believe you. And since when did you start calling yourself by your family name?"

"Um…"

"Precisely, Prin. Are you letting that last thing with Malficious get you down?"

The leggy fifth year made a face disturbingly similar to the one her rival often wore. Nina was kind enough not to mention it. Or she might have been saving it for a later occasion. She wasn't yet sure which. "I don't know why you let him get to you. It happens every time. And of course he always gets off because you end up taking the high ground…"

"Of course I take the high ground," Prin cried. "I don't wanna be like that pile of slop. Pureblood my pertuttie. Pure slop."

Nina giggled. "All right. Enough dwelling on the enemy. We've class to get to, and unlike you some of us need more than a cursory revision of our notes to get a passing grade."

"Passing!" Prin gaped at her friend. "I always do better than passing."

"My point exactly." She reached out and grabbed Prin's arm. "I don't want to miss breakfast either, you know."

It wasn't fair that the Ravenclaw house table was so to the Slytherin table. Unless she resorted to sitting with her back to their table—which, at certain times of the year, was such a bad idea that there would be a virtual stampede of Ravenclaws racing each other for spots on the side facing—Prin couldn't help but look over there every time her head went up. And, sure, anyone could sit anywhere they wanted at the various house tables, but years tended to clump together out of habit, so the fifth year Slytherins were just a few table-widths away.

_Least he's got dark hair_, Prin thought as her eyes passed over the sea of mostly dark heads. She started worrying her lower lip with her teeth. _But why does every other Slytherin have to have dark hair, too?_ Even though she knew that it was the only thing making her overly eager watching less obvious, it was getting annoying. She couldn't see Malficious.

"Oof!" Prin's head—and voluminous hair—whipped around. "Hey what was that about!"

"Hey yourself!" came a female voice from her other side. "Watch where your putting that thing."

"It's all Nina's fault," she protested.

Cairistiona put her elbows on the table to glare around Prin's narrow body. "Do you know how dangerous her hair is?" Her own short black hair hung around her chin, framing her porcelain pale skin.

"Do you know how dangerous her staring is?"

Prin felt her face go hot. _I guess not so covert after all._

"What are you talking about?"

Pointing with her chin, Nina said, "She keeps staring at the Slytherins as if she can make them move with her eyes."

The pale Scottish girl made a sound of disgust. "Really, Prin. Just because you have one advanced class—"

"Two," she automatically reminded her friend.

Who ignored her. "—doesn't mean you should start jumping ahead on every last bit o' magic. Save some for the rest of us, now. We'll get to wandless magic eventually you know."

Nina shook her head. Now she too was leaning on her elbows, talking around Prin. "That's not it. She's looking for Malficious."

Cairistiona reared back in disgust, her pale blue eyes widening. "That git?"

_"Shhh!" "Shut up!" _ both girls cried together. Though tiny, she didn't quite reach Prin's shoulder, Cairistiona had a voice that could carry over a mer-opera. "I don't want him to know!" Prin added, her blush deepening. She was glad she hadn't decided to pull her hair back. Even her ears were burning up.

Nina hurrumphed. "Trust me he won't need Cair's big mouth to figure it out, Prinny. I know ya hate the jerk but, seriously, if you set his robes on fire I think they're going to figure out who did it really fast."

That set all three girls laughing.

A small chorus of "Hi Maggie" "Morning Mags" and "Cutting it close, Magdalenas" preceded the arrival of another fifth year girl. Standing somewhere between Prin's coltish height and Nina's average build, she was modestly pretty and seemed perpetually distracted, as if she was already running late to the next item on her to-do list. She dropped into the seat across from Prin. "Think I have enough time to inhale breakfast?"

Cairistiona made a scoffing sound. "We've got Divinations first. Bring it upstairs with you and tell Trelawney that you're planning on reading my future from the toast crumbs."

Magdalena, or Maggie, frowned at the plate she'd already started piling high with breakfast goods. "But I was really looking forward to sausage."

"Well could you look forward some place else," Nina said, her tone mischievous.

"Huh? What?" Her eyes danced between her three friends and their very different expressions: Nina's mischief, Cairistiona's over-dramatic nauseation and Prin's mortification. "I'm missing more than breakfast, aren't I?"

"You have no idea."

"Are you ever."

"Ugh."

Maggie stabbed her sausage with her fork. "So. Tell me. Don't just leave me sitting here. Lost. That's very unfair, isn't it?"

"It's like this—" Nina started. Prin quickly took over. "—you know those two classes the Headmaster put me in for?"

Maggie nodded.

"Paul Malficious is in them, too. Both of them."

_"What?!"_

"Not so loud!" Prin, Nina and Cairistiona said together. The din in the room covered the noise for everyone except the students sitting closest to them. Sighing, Prin took up the story again. "Anyway, so he's in my class and immediately he goes after me."

Maggie sat back, a self-satisfied look on her face. "You mean you two went after each other."

"No!"

"Oh yes. You can't resist. You're like…like natural enemies. Two animals facing off in the wild."

Prin grumbled something being higher on the evolutionary scale than a snake like Malficious while Nina continued: "He really got her, though. I caught her in the mirror this morning telling him off. And you know how she gets when she finds a good one."

All three friends looked at Prin. "What?" She had turned a bright red.

"Yes, that's precisely it. So either she got him good the other day or she's working on some choice ammunition feels embarrassed that she's even thinking of using it."

"Nina!"

"You know that's it. Tell us it's not."

There was no way she could tell her, any of them, that that wasn't it. She hadn't found a way to confess to them about Malficious' kiss that night in the common room or in their dorm. No way she could do it now with so many people around. At the rate she was going, though, her head was going to burst from all the blood rushing to her face.

"Right. So she keeps looking over at the Slytherin table. I guess to figure out if she's going to use the heavy duty spells."

"Wandless magic," Cairistiona confided.

Maggie made a face. "Isn't it enough that you have advanced classes?"

Prin rolled her eyes just as the bell sounded for their morning classes. She maneuvered her long legs out from under the table with what little grace she had. It wasn't much. "Come on." Hopping on one foot, she half twisted trying to get the other free. "Off to the wonders of Divination."

Half their year groaned while the other half smirked and went off to Ancient Runes. "Why didn't we dropped this course?" Maggie asked from around a piece of toast as she fell into step around them.

"We're young and stupid?" Nina supplied.

"Thought we were supposed to be brilliant."

"Brilliantly stupid?" Prin tossed back from the head of their little group of unhappy Divination students.

"Sounds about right," came from somewhere far behind.

The Ravenclaw's laughter almost drowned out the soft, "Hey, Silverton," but Prin could pull Malficious' voice out of a crowd of fifty, let alone less than fifteen. Making a hasty, and downright shoddy, excuse, she pulled away from her friends and housemates to stand arms-length away from Paul Malficious standing just in front of a pillar. Students of various years streamed past them. "Hey."

_Hey? Hey? The best I can come up with is "Hey"?_ She would have pinched herself if she hadn't thought it would make her look like a bigger idiot. He, of course, was cool, calm and collected. Prin was pretty sure her armpits were dripping.

"Remember yesterday—"

Did she ever.

"When I told you about being slow on draw?"

What? Huh? "Um, yeah."

His eyes seemed to glow with their own light as he looked at her and smiled. "I probably should have told you to pay attention to your surroundings, too."

A flash of green light came from over his should, propelling Prin backwards. "What in Merlin's na—" Prin's stomach turned. She began to gag. And suddenly she knew just what, in Merlin's name, had happened. Three of Malficious' cronies stepped into view from behind the pillar, all of them wearing their leader's same smirk.

"You little—" But she couldn't get the words out because the first slug had appeared. Then two. Then five in quick succession. The four Slytherin boys howled with laughter as tears slid down Prin's face and slugs out of her mouth. Suddenly a two pair hands were pulling her up from the floor while a familiar voice threatened everything short castration. Prin looked up long enough to watch tiny Cairistiona send all four boys running for their class.

"You okay, Prinny?" Nina asked as Maggie rubbed her back.

Prin answered by spewing four more slugs.

"I think that's a no, Nina," Maggie said for her.

"Guess we're missing Divination."

Turning to face them all Cairistiona said, "There are easier ways of getting us out class, Prin."

"Think she already knew?" Prin managed to gasp between slugs.

All three Ravenclaws recoiled. "If she had, I wished told one of us," Cairistiona said as accidentally squished a slug. "Ick."

"Next time, Prin, do your worst," Maggie suggested as they walked her to the Hospital wing. "Better embarrassment than—Oh gross! Aim those somewhere else please!"

Fin(ite)


End file.
